Salmon have flooded into state and federal fish hatcheries in the past month. The key indicator, the arrival of two-year-old salmon, also predicts the ocean off the Bay Area coast will be full of fish next summer.
Trips to Nimbus Hatchery last week on the American River near Sacramento and to the Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek near the Sacramento River unveiled great news for salmon, the people who fish for them, and those who love to eat them.
At Coleman, 55,000 spawn-ready salmon returned to Battle Creek this fall, 42,000 to the hatchery, up from lows of 14,000 and 10,000, respectively in 2008, reported Brett Galyean at the hatchery.
The number of 2-year-old salmon, or jacks, which is used to predict next year’s run, has been mind-bending, 22,800, up from 721 in in 2009 and 5,500 in 2010.
This year’s egg take at Coleman was 13 million before they shut down the gates on the fish ladders. Those eggs are now being used to produce 12 million smolts, or juvenile salmon, which will be released in April.
Nimbus Hatchery on the American River had similar great news.
The hatchery has met its egg-take goal of 6.6 million, reported hatchery manager Paula Hoover, and plan to meet their goal of releasing 4 million salmon in the coming spring. The number of jacks was also up, with 4,000 more-to-date compared to a year ago.
Most adult salmon are three and four years old. The number of jacks – the smaller 2-year-olds — is critical for federal and state biologists to plan next year’s season. The ratio is roughly 30 jacks to 1 adult. So large numbers of jacks now is an indicator of excellent ocean feed conditions and a big year for salmon in 2012.
“This year’s run is tremendous, 55,0000 to Battle Creek,” said Galyean at the Coleman hatchery. “I’ve been here four years, and you could add those years up and it wouldn’t add up to that.”
He called the jack return “extremely high.”
“It shows the ocean conditions are a lot better,” he said. “We use it as an indicator for next year’s return.”
Hoover at Nimbus was also thrilled.
“The return of jacks is quite high,” she said. “Our adult fish runs are about normal, not high or low,” and a normal year coming after the the declines of 2007-2009 is great news. “We’ve met the quota, made our production goals.”
Another significant note: Up north, a check with the huge fish hatchery near the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River system showed similar large numbers of adult and jack salmon.
To tour the Nimbus Hatchery, plug this address into your GPS: 2001 Nimbus Road, Gold River, CA 95670, near Fair Oaks. For information, call (916) 358-2829 or go to dfg.ca.gov.
To tour the Coleman Hatchery, plug this into your GPS: 2411 Coleman Fish Hatchery Road, Anderson, 96007. For information, call (530) 365-8222 or go to fws.gov/coleman.
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Feel great in the next 24 hours: Hike. Bike. Camp. Fish. Boat. Wildlife watch. Explore.
We visited the Coleman National Fish Hatchery today. What a place! Beautiful setting. Hope the salmon make a great comeback. PS – we also saw a pair of bald eagles soaring overhead, down the road from the hatchery!